According to Frances Richards, for a period during the mid-1930s the artist thought of becoming a sculptor, as well as a painter. During this period (c. 1934–1938) he was associated with the English Surrealist movement, exhibiting with them and attending meetings at Sir Roland Penrose's house; in this connection he made, as well as reliefs, a number of surreal ‘objects’, or constructions in the round using metal, beads, cloth, wire, wood and other ‘found’ materials bearing some resemblance to the ones illustrated in these drawings. They were, according to Henry Moore, ‘very like sculpture’ but were destroyed by the artist when he moved to Cardiff during the war. Frances Richards comments that Ceri's temperament, somewhat impulsive and impatient, was probably not conducive to sculpture, and in later years he stuck largely to painting, drawing and reliefs.

Ceri Richards made several works on the twin themes of ‘The Sculptor and his Model’ and ‘The Sculptor and his Object’ at this period. These include, in addition to a number of drawings, a painted wood relief of 1936 and an oil of 1937 (coll. Mrs Frances Richards).